Nariah squeezed her little car into parking between a dually truck and a camper van painted with world war two fighter jet-style eagles on one side. The van was outfitted with solar on the roof and probably housed a couple of nomad vampires hiding from the last rays of the afternoon.
Nariah didn’t intend to be downtown long enough to run into them at sunset.
Her last stop today was one of her favorites, a little supply store stuffed to the brim with herbs, stone, books, and trinkets useful in the arcane branch of magic. Nariah’s arcane knowledge started and ended with a high school promise to herself that she’d never work with geometry again, but the overlap in useful focus items made Anesa’s shop the perfect place for Nariah to stock up.
As a bonus, she could window shop along the way.
The very tempting chocolate shop had several decorated candy apples on display in their window with a sign that said Apples are a fruit! While their A-stand at the door pointed toward the shop with a sign that said This way: chocolate. That way: donno, bears probably. We wouldn‘t risk it. Nariah resisted temptation but put a reminder in her phone to pick something out for her mother’s birthday next month.
At the dog grooming place three doors down, a newly trimmed poodle stood in the window display, waiting for his owner to pick him up. His ears perked up as Nariah walked by and he wagged his rainbow-dyed tail.
Nariah passed two clothing shops still closed for the day that catered to vampires and other creatures of the night.
Then the bone bracelet on Nariah’s wrist woke up and hissed in her blood.
Nariah paused. The bracelet had once been a snake, a garter snake that had been found in the garden. Now the spine wrapped around her wrist, held with jump rings and coiled copper wire to keep it flexible.
The bracelet, normally white, glowed a ghostly blue, and the snake hissed again, tugging Nariah’s spiritual sense across the road. It didn’t feel urgent. And it was too early for vampires. The sensation of scales sliding through Nariah’s bloodstream was more like coiled excitement.
Nariah spotted the source as soon as she crossed the road.
Tahe, a homeless black teen stood between stores, speaking animatedly into their phone. Their hair, in a thousand small braids long enough whip the unwary, had been threaded with green this week to match their deep-forest crop top and loose pants with a high waist. They wore dark strappy sandals that Nariah recognized from last week’s mostly gold outfit. Two piercings in their right ear dangled with dark metal and green glass, two more studs in their eyebrows had green accents, and the single piercing at the top of their left ear remained the simple white zirconia that Tahe always wore.
Despite the pull of her snake spirit, Nariah remained at a distance until Tahe finished their video—probably a livestream to announce their location for afternoon hair clients.
Nariah carried a few bone charms on her in case of out of control magic, but the snake on her wrist was the only spirit she brought with her around town. There were several more in her backyard that abutted a national forest, but none of them had shown an interest in staying with her.
The snake, on the other hand, had tried to follow her into the house the same day she brought it home to lay its body to rest. Once the forest had reclaimed its soft remains, Nariah had dug up the bones, carefully cleaned them of oil and residual bits, and strung the spine together with wire. The rest of the skeleton—its ribs, skull and fangs, and the smallest tail bones—all nestled in a bed of dry dandelion, to strengthen the spirit in the mortal realm, and iris, for emotional peace. Nariah kept it safe in a small glass jar in her workroom. The snake rode along in the bracelet when she was out and rested gently in its dandelion nest when she returned home.
All spirits lingered for different reasons, but with animals, it was difficult to puzzle out why they hung around. Except for dogs—dogs were always very clear about their needs.
The first animal spirit Nariah ever saw was a house cat lounging on the counter of a used bookstore. It lay on its side, striped body fading in and out in the light, and it pawed at an old cat toy left there beside the checkout. Its transparent, almost blue, paws swiped right through the toy without affecting it, but that didn’t seem to bother the cat, who rolled on the counter for a better, upside down, angle.
Nariah was only ten when she saw the cat and learned there were powerful things in the world beyond human understanding. Fifteen years later, she was the one to call when a ghost needed calming or a grim rose in the cemetery.
But for all her experience with spirits and their needs, there was still so much more to learn.
For instance, why exactly did her little snake love Tahe so much, even though the teenager couldn’t see or sense it?
Tahe squealed when they spotted Nariah and ran in close, their phone in both hands as they navigated at the same time. “NARIAH, do you have the snake? You have the snake. I’ve got new names to try, looklooklook.”
Nariah lifted her wist, and the spirit surged up out of its bones, wrapping first around Nariah’s hand, then standing tall like a cobra in faint bluish white. Its tongue flicked in Tahe’s direction and Nariah felt it flex in amusement.
Since Nariah had found the creature in the wild, she didn’t know if it had a name or what it might be. Tahe was convinced they could find one it would appreciate, though.
Tahe leaned in as if the snake could read their screen. “Ok, I found a name generator for Naga, which are like half snake half people from myth. They’re the best. Anyway, what about Tarmu? Eh? You like it?” They looked down at Nariah’s wrist, missing the snake’s actual position by a few inches, but it was the thought that counted.
The snake flexed.
“That’s a no,” Nariah translated.
“Tsk. Ok, no biggie, I’ve got a backup. You’ll love this one. Vremvadhyanshtra.”
The snake flicked its tongue and turned to look up at Nariah.
Nariah wrinkled her nose. “That’s impossible to pronounce.”
Tahe squinted at her. “Is that your opinion or the snake’s?”
Nariah sighed, “It’s mine.” She looked down at the creature on her wrist. “What do you think?”
The flex in Nariah’s veins was different, more of a maybe?
“I think you’re getting closer,” Nariah reported to Tahe. “Have any other long names?”
“Oh, yes. We love a queen with an opinion. Ok, last one. Sinthisadasa.”
The snake immediately twisted on Nariah’s wrist and flexed repeatedly.
She jumped, then smiled at Tahe. “We have a winner.”
Tahe’s eyes widened at Nariah, then glanced back and forth between her wrist and her face. “What? Really?”
The snake—Sinthisadasa—flexed again and leaned its head toward Tahe, flicking its tongue.
“Sin says thank you.”
The snake immediately turned on Nariah and hissed, showing tiny ghostly fangs.
“What?” Nariah said, laughing, “You don’t like my nickname? You picked a name with five syllables!”
The snake hissed again, and Nariah put up her other hand. “Ok! Ok, I’m sorry. We did spend months trying to find the right one.”
Sinthisadasa curled itself back into its bone bracelet and pulsed with satisfaction.
Nariah smiled at Tahe. “Well done. I guess I need to look into Naga myths, then.”
Tahe looked at their phone, tapping rapidly. “I’ll send you some links to read.”
Nariah’s phone buzzed several times in her pocket. She ignored it. “Business has been good?”
“Yeah,” Tahe said, still sending articles to Nariah’s phone. “Downtown on the weekend is always a hit. People like to be seen, you know. I’m running a contest on my social media right now. First person to come tell me the magic word gets half off a braiding, but everyone else who shows gets on the waitlist.”
They sent several more texts, making Nariah’s phone vibrate again, then slide the phone into their back pocket and clapped their hands flat together under their chin. “I keep the waitlist closed most of the time, so I expect quite a few fans to show up—”
“Ohmygod, am I too late?”
A young teenager, maybe fifteen, with a tall afro and a worn t-shirt fraying at the hems, came skidding to a stop beside Nariah and Tahe, his breath heaving like he’d just sprinted an Olympic distance.
He bent over, breathing hard, but held up his phone for Tahe to see. “I shared…. Your video,” he panted. “And the password is hexagon.”
Nariah looked at Tahe. “Hexagon?”
“Everyone knows hexagons are the best-agons,” they said, as if that explained everything. “And you’re the first to show up, congrats!”
“Oh, yes! My hair needs help.”
Nariah just shook her head. “I’ll catch you later, Tahe. Thanks again.”
“Anytime you want your braids re-done, you come to me first, ok? Byeeeeee.” Tahe waved their hand in Nariah’s direction, already pulling the phone out to get back online. Marketing waited for no-one in a business that thrived on live interactions.
Nariah smiled for the rest of her walk downtown to the arcane shop.
Sinthisadasa uncurled from its bone bracelet as Nariah approached the shop. She paused to consider what had drawn the snake’s attention. The double doors were propped open to the evening air and every horizontal surface was occupied by a plant, a crystal, a book, or something occult.
Except there were spots of unusual chaos now that Nariah looked closely. Piles of crystals instead of organized rows, books knocked over like dominoes, tangled bones that had once been assembled in their displays, and plants that wilted like they’d been over watered.
Nariah stepped into the store in time to see the owner, Anesa, lunge forward in her wheelchair to catch a glass specimen jar that had flung itself off the top shelf by her checkout. The arcanist bobbled the jar, then hugged it like a pillow and breathed a sigh of relief.
“I saw that,” Nariah said, moving deeper into the shop. “Nice catch.”
Anesa’s head shot up, her eyes wide. “Nariah,” she breathed. “Oh my god, you have to help me. I have a poltergeist or something. It’s been causing chaos all day!” She shoved the specimen jar onto her counter and wheeled around to gesture at the shop. “Look at this disaster! It’s going to take days to put it back together.”
Anesa dropped her hands to the wheels of her clockwork, arcane-powered chair with a sigh. She looked well beyond stressed. Her normally neat, white hair pressed back instead stood up straight like she’d been electrocuted in a cartoon. Her dark coat, tailored short for a sitting position, had rough chalk symbols sketched into the cuffs like she’d been in a hurry to cast spells. Never a good idea in any magical field. Even for an expert like Anesa.
Nariah scanned the overturned shelves with doubt. Something like a poltergeist usually came with a lot more violence. She noticed nothing broken, just disrupted.
Then Sinthisadasa surged to the left. Nariah twisted in time to catch another specimen jar that seemed to jump off the shelf. A jar of a diaphonized bird, mostly transparent skin and muscle with purple bones and feathers. Oddly, not a magical construct, just chemicals and time.
Something darted away on the shelf and Sinthisadasa lept after it, sliding out of its bones and onto the shelf in a rapid scramble.
Nariah set the jar aside and followed the snake. Whatever it chased knocked books and crystals askew, it scrambled over a pile of dried herbs, its bluish, transparent body long with tiny legs. Rodent-like.
The pestering spirit put up a good fight, darting away from Sinthisadasa and between specimens, until Nariah grabbed at the necklace she wore under her shirt. Nariah pulled at the motes of energy in the air through the bone charm copper for conduction wrapped around an opal that resonated with all the elements. She pushed that energy to Sinthisadasa through its spine bracelet and it abruptly grew three times as large. The opal went dark, its energy spent in that one push. She’d have to charge it again when she got home.
The massive snake lunged one final time, snatching the pesky spirit off a shelf and wrapping it tightly in layers of coiling scales. They toppled off the shelf to the floor in a cascade of medicine cards.
Anesa wheeled over to the cards and picked up the one in the entire pile that had fallen face up. She used a short staff with something gently sticky on one end to reach the floor, sliding the staff back into a holster on her chair.
“The crow?” She looked at Nariah. “Not a poltergeist?”
Nariah shook her head. “I’m not familiar with the cards, but no, I don’t think it’s a poltergeist.”
“Crow is a messenger,” Anesa said. “But this was reversed, so mischievousness and play. Engaging in one’s nature.”
Nariah crouched by the spilled cards where Sinthisadasa coiled and contained the troublemaker. At her request, the snake eased out of its ball, exposing a tightly bound ferret who managed to look quite offended at the manhandling.
Nariah smiled. “If I’m not mistaken, Anesa. This is your shop guardian.”
Anesa blinked. “My shop…. You mean Taco!?” She whirled the chair around to point at a small shrine on the back wall where a photo of a fuzzy ferret curled on his back was framed and hung with lavender—peace and tranquility. “That Taco? He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Nariah shrugged. “Let him go, Sinthisadasa. You did good work.” She offered the snake’s bone bracelet and it uncoiled slowly, sinking back into the spine like a fine mist.
“He passed almost six years ago. This has never happened before.” Anesa mused, as she straightened a series of potted plants.
Taco chirped. Or he would have if Nariah could hear him. He bounded up on Anesa’s chair, lept across to the checkout counter, ran to the back wall, and jumped to his shrine. There he curled his back up like a startled cat and hopped around in distress.
“Something different about your shrine? He’s upset for sure. Probably why he’s causing chaos. To get your attention.”
“I just freshened it yesterday,” Anesa muttered, but wheeled over to the counter to peer at it. “Photo, fresh flowers, no dust—oh…. Oh, no.” She pulled her chair back to check the floor and nearby shelving. “The squeaky toy is missing, it’s his favorite toy.”
“That would do it—” Nariah started, but before she could join the search, Taco jumped back to the counter, silently chirped again in Nariah’s direction, and then bolted for the front of the shop.
Nariah turned to follow, spotting Taco at the very edge of the shop’s front doors, peering intently out into the downtown street.
After a moment, he looked at Nariah, then back outside.
“Anesa… what are the odds it was stolen?”
Her muffled voice answered, “Why would someone steal an old, chewed-up squeaky toy?” A thump as she moved a stack of books on the shelves.
“I don’t know, but Taco’s at the doorway.” She approached, kneeling to peer at Taco’s eye-level. All she saw was Tahe across the street, fingers working rapidly to braid the boy’s hair who had won their surprise contest online.
Did Tahe see something?
“Anesa, I’ll be right back,” Nariah said.
Anesa waved at her from behind the counter, still organizing the shelves as she searched.
Nariah crossed the street, giving Tahe a wave. In the few minutes Nariah had spent in the shop, six more people had shown up to watch Tahe do their work hoping to get on the waitlist. The teeenager who had sprinted to victory sat in a folding chair, half his afro clipped out of the way to the side while Tahe dipped their fingers in moisturiser while braiding and chatted for the live videos everyone seemed to be recording.
“It just takes practice,” Tahe was saying. “But hold up we’ll get back to that, this here’s my friend Nariah, I keep asking to do her braids, but she hasn’t given in yet. Her artist is an expert though, I don’t blame her, check out the angles over her ears.”
The phones swiveled to Nariah. She tried her best to ignore them as they circled closer like curious songbirds ready to snatch breadcrumbs.
“Tahe, sorry to interrupt. Have you been around here since yesterday?”
“Yep, going on three days. I’ll probably take off this afternoon.”
Probably to crash on a fan’s couch for a night or two.
“This arcane shop across the street,” Nariah pointed, and the cameras followed her finger. “Something small went missing, I think yesterday afternoon. Have you seen anything strange?”
“Hmm,” Tahe said, eyes flicking to the shop once and back down to their braiding. “You think one of the street kids stole something?”
“No, it’s an old sentimental item from the back of the shop. But the guardian pointed me over here, so I thought I’d ask.”
One teen behind a camera asked, “The shop has a guardian?”
“Oh, my girl Nariah talks to ghosts, it’s great,” Tahe said, nodding.
That wasn’t quite how it worked, but Tahe knew that. The comment was probably for the cameras. Mystery and impossibility were great selling points.
“Wait!” Tahe froze at the end of a braid, their eyes suddenly fixed on the arcane shop with a distant look that Nariah recognized. Memory. “I found three feathers outside the shop yesterday afternoon and I brought them in to the owner because I wasn’t sure if they were part of her materials or not. They looked like random feathers, but I do technology not magic.” They shrugged one shoulder and went back to braiding.
Mystery feathers, huh?
“Thanks, Tahe.”
Nariah jogged back across the street. She found Taco at the sales counter, his little ghostly paws passing through piles of semi-precious stones as Anesa tried to sort them.
“Tahe said they gave you feathers yesterday.”
Anesa looked up, eyes a little squinted as she tried to remember. “Ah,” she said, eyes widening, “A blue jay, I think. Said they were laying outside the door.”
She pulled her chair back to scan the shelves under her counter and pulled them out triumphantly.
Taco immediately hissed and launched himself off the counter. He passed through Anesa’s hand, but latched onto one feather and tumbled to the floor with it, tearing it rapidly to pieces. Anesa startled back. “What on earth?”
“Taco,” Nariah explained. “I think we found your thief.”
“Oh, my god!” Anesa slapped the remaining feather on the counter. “I did chase a bird out of here the past few days. It was digging through my crystals!”
She grumbled further as she sifted through the shelves. She produced a thick book tagged with a rainbow of bookmarks, a small tray of chalk, and then cleared a space on the counter with a sweep of her arm. Gemstone scattered everywhere.
Anesa placed the feather in alignment with a compass, some measurement Nariah was unfamiliar with. Then she flipped through her book to a well-used page.
With the chalk, she drew a small diagram right on the counter around the feather, muttering as she worked. “A circle for focus, triangle for direction. Put a turquoise here for intuition, some obsidian to remove obstacles in out path, add this angle here, connect these points….” A moment later the sacred geometry was complete and Anesa activated the spell with a touch of fire.
The chalk flared like magnesium, burning to ash in an instant.
Then the feather fluttered up into the air.
“It’s a tracing spell,” Anesa said, eyes fixed on the feather. “It’ll fly back to its owner. We just need to follow.”
Nariah watched the feather flutter around the shop, first at the plants, then the books, then the crystals, almost like it was on the edge of a bird’s wing. “Hopefully, the jay isn’t sitting on a rooftop,” Nariah chuckled.
Suddenly, the feather shot like a rocket out the front door.
“Shit!” Nariah bolted after it, skidding on the sidewalk and dodging the white poodle with a rainbow tail from the groomer’s display window. “Sorry, excuse me,” she called to the owner as she pursued the feather.
It flipped in a loop over the cars as it crossed the street, nearly slipped away between an alley where Nariah had to hop a chain-link fence, then flew in a straight line across the grass of a city park until it disappeared into the hole in the side of a tree trunk.
Nariah arrived, panting, in time to see a blue jay stick its head out of the hole, feather in its beak, and throw the offending thing out. It squawked at Nariah, then vanished back inside the hole.
“Blue jays,” Nariah breathed hard, “Don’t cavity nest. But you do make cashes of nuts and things.” She used the flashlight on her phone to peer inside the hole, standing on her tiptoes to get a good look.
She only saw a flash of blue before the jay pecked at her phone and shrieked.
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry.” Nariah patted her pockets, looking for something she could trade with. Peanuts? Were there any acorns around?
Her bone charm thumped against her chest, and she quickly pulled it overhead. Maybe the opal would be good enough to trade? She unstrung it from the silver chain, then used her phone’s flashlight to make it sparkle.
The jay immediately perched on the hole’s edge to see what the fuss was about. It peered at the stone with one eye, then the other. Fluttered its wings.
Then it bent to grab the shiny thing.
Nariah closed her fist around the charm.
The bird eyed her instead.
When she opened her hand again, it tried to take the charm. Nariah closed her fingers.
This went on a few more times before the jay retreated into the hole. It came back with a small blue gum wrapper in its beak.
Nariah closed her fist.
The bird retreated and tried again with a blue hair tie with a plastic bow on it, the cap for a blue sharpie pen, and two different pieces of blue plastic.
Finally, it offered the squeaky toy, just a coin sized air bladder in the jay’s favorite color: blue.
Nariah let it place the squeaker on her palm and take the opal in exchange. It chirped at her one final time and vanished into the trunk.
Nariah huffed a little laugh, staring at the squeaker in her hand, but quite pleased to have found it.
She took the long way around back to Anesa’s shop because hopping one chain-link fence was enough for the day, and entered, squeaking the squeaker between two fingers.
Behind the counter, Anesa spun her chair with a gasp. “You actually found it! I was going to chase, but it took off so fast I lost you across the road.”
Nariah waved her hand in dismissal. “I’m a little surprised, but the blue jay and I struck a deal.”
Anesa laughed.
Nariah handed her the squeaker. She placed it on Taco’s shrine and patted the velvet fondly. Taco hopped up onto the shrine and war-danced around his squeaker, back arched like a cat, tail curled, body twisting as he hopped on his toes in circles.
“Hopefully this shop will have some peace now,” Anesa said with a sigh. “Thank you, you’re a hero!”
Nariah smiled. “It was your tracking spell.”
“Yeah, but you can see Taco. I didn’t even know he was causing the trouble.” She cocked her head at the scattered pile of medicine cards—now on the counter instead of the floor. “Usually the cards aren’t so literal. The blue jay is a corvid, isn’t it?”
Nariah nodded. “And it’s got a little collection of blue things in the park. I recommend setting out a tray with some peanuts or you might find your lapis lazuli going missing, too.”
Anesa pulled out her phone. “Gonna put peanuts on the grocery list right now.” She tapped a few times before finally nodding. “That’s done.” She leaned on the counter toward Nariah. “Well, that’s a bit much for the evening. I hope I didn’t make you late for anything.”
“Not at all. You were my last stop.”
“Saving the best for last?” Anesa winked.
“Always,” Nariah agreed. “But I seem to be in the market for some opal. A blue jay has mine.”
Anesa laughed and waved her to the mess of stone on the countertop. “If you can find it in this mess, you can have it.”
Nariah snorted and began helping Anesa sort the stones into their appropriate piles. It would take a while to get the shop back in order, but Nariah smiled.
Taco’s translucent form curled around his favorite squeaker toy and he stuck one leg up in the air like his photo, contorted in peaceful sleep.